Noise words are common words within a company or organisation name which will be ignored when the matching process is takingplace on the screening system, so that key name words will be the focus. Mostscreening systems allow you to configure a set of noise words, or at leastinclude a preconfigured set. These noise words are removed from names prior toentering the matching system so are not considered by the rules and algorithms.
The purpose of identification and removal of noise words isto help refine the matching process by eliminating data from the names, whichis less important in identifying the uniqueness of the name. These typesof words may be left out of the sanctions list name or the customer name, so intheory, removal in the matching process will enable the scoring of alerts, tobe more balanced.
For example:
Customer Name versus List Name
‘RGI International’ versus ‘RGI’
If ‘international’ was not considered a noise word thelikelihood is that the match between these two names could fall below youralerting threshold and would not generate an alert for review. If‘international’ was a noise word it would be ignored within the matchingprocess and the system would see RGI versus RGI and would likely generate ahigh scoring match.
A critical requirement for use of noise words is to ensurethat the noise words are removed equally from the sanctions lists names andyour customer names so that there is a balanced view.
For example:
‘RGI International’ versus ‘RGIInternational’
If the system considered international a noise word for thelist names but not for the customer names, the match being reviewed would be:
‘RGI International’ versus ‘RGI’ Again thesame issue as above can arise whereby this might not be identified as a validmatch within your screening threshold.
Determining what to use as a noise word will requirethought. Most system vendors will include a default list which you may beable to amend internally or where you make a business case and the vendor willadd the word to the default list for all clients. In particular, wherethe list is more generic for all customers, a full review should be completedwith testing where the noise words functionality is switched off and thenswitched on to see the difference in the results.
The articles to follow will look at how to decide whichwords to include in your noise words list and the potential pitfalls with usingnoise words.
If you would like to learn more about this, and how SQAConsulting may assist you in such needs please contact us.
